Scrabble

Client

Scrabble

Situation/Challenge

Electronic Arts Montreal, developers of the popular Scrabble app for Facebook and mobile, needed assistance designing, producing, and product managing the first complete overhaul to the game in years. Scrabble had been surpassed by Zynga’s Words with Friends and was in dire need of UX and feature upgrading.

AC+A’s Solutions

AC+A performed an extensive competitive analysis to understand the current state of the word game market, player expectations, trends vs. truly stick features, and so forth. In a presentation to the core Scrabble team, AC+A outlined Competitive Intellectual Social Game best practices that we would later help the team enact.

Over the course of eight months, AC+A worked on- and off-site with the Scrabble team, providing product management and production and design leadership. AC+A identified and addressed weak spots in the product’s UX, introduced social and sharing features, and designed key monetization opportunities.

Over the duration of AC+A’s engagement with the Scrabble team, we produced the Scrabble Beta and oversaw the launch and full deployment of the new version of Scrabble.

Results

AC+A directly contributed to KPI improvements across the board, most notably DAU, MAU, and retention increases that hadn’t been seen on the product for months. We provided a solid roadmap for ongoing development, including a prioritized server-reliant features list. We also successfully integrated the first sponsored content into Scrabble, with Toyota as a partner.

Testimonial

"I hired Adrian as a consultant working on a game team. He brought a lot of expert knowledge about social gaming and best practices, which contributed a lot to the success of the project. He was also very proactive and went above and beyond the normal consultant agreement by making himself accountable for results."